Printer

Abstract

A printer that performs printing for a print region of a glass plate includes a conveying unit that includes a plurality of paired rollers adapted to sandwich both side faces of the plate, brings the paired rollers respectively in contact with the both side faces with an urging force, and conveys the plate only by the plurality of the paired rollers; a printing unit that includes a printhead and a swinging unit adapted to swing the printhead between a printing position and a retracting position and shifts the printhead to the printing position so as to come in contact with the print region by the swinging unit when printing, and performs printing for the print region by the printhead; and a suppressing guide unit that regulates floating-up of the plate when printing by coming in contact with the plate only on a neighborhood region of the side face.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. A printer that performs printing for a glass plate provided with a print region and used for a preparation slide, the printer comprising:
 a conveying unit that includes a plurality of paired rollers adapted to sandwich both side faces of the plate in a width direction orthogonal to a conveyance direction of the plate, brings the paired rollers respectively in contact with the both side faces of the sandwiched plate by urging each of the paired rollers with an urging force of an elastic member, and conveys the plate in the conveyance direction by the plurality of the paired rollers while sandwiching the plate by rotating each of the paired rollers with a driving force of a drive motor; 
 a printing unit that includes a printhead and a swinging unit adapted to swing the printhead between a printing position and a retracting position apart from the printing position, shifts the printhead to the printing position by the swinging unit when printing, brings the printhead in contact with the print region on the surface of the plate being conveyed by the conveying unit, and performs printing for the print region by the printhead; and 
 a suppressing guide unit that regulates floating-up of the plate when printing by coming in contact with the plate from a surface side only on a neighborhood region of the side face so as not to come in contact with an observation region at a center in the width direction of the plate on a surface of the plate being conveyed by the conveying unit; 
 wherein the suppressing guide unit includes one pair of plate members disposed on the both side-faces of the plate. 
 
     
     
       2. The printer according to  claim 1 , comprising:
 a platen roller that is disposed at the printing position so as to oppose the printhead and comes in contact with a back surface of the plate being conveyed. 
 
     
     
       3. The printer according to  claim 1 , wherein the suppressing guide unit further includes one pair of suppressing rollers disposed on the both side-faces. 
     
     
       4. The printer according to  claim 3 , wherein a distance from the one pair of plate members to the printing position is shorter than a distance from the one pair of suppressing rollers to the printing position. 
     
     
       5. The printer according to  claim 1 , further comprising: a stacker that is disposed on an outside of a discharge port through which the plate having been printed is discharged and stacks the discharged plate, wherein the one pair of plate members are disposed between the discharge port and the printing position in the conveyance direction. 
     
     
       6. The printer according to  claim 1 , wherein the conveying unit includes three sets of the paired rollers and the three sets of the paired rollers are rotated by a driving force of the one drive motor. 
     
     
       7. A printer that performs printing for a glass plate provided with a print region and used for a preparation slide, the printer comprising:
 a conveying unit that includes a plurality of paired rollers adapted to sandwich both side faces of the plate in a width direction orthogonal to a conveyance direction of the plate, brings the paired rollers respectively in contact with the both side faces of the sandwiched plate by urging each of the paired rollers with an urging force of an elastic member, and conveys the plate in the conveyance direction by the plurality of the paired rollers while sandwiching the plate by rotating each of the paired rollers with a driving force of a drive motor; 
 a printing unit that performs printing for the print region on a surface of the plate being conveyed by the conveying unit at a printing position; 
 a stacker that is disposed on an outside of a discharge port through which the plate having been printed is discharged and stacks the discharged plate; and 
 a suppressing guide unit that is disposed between the discharge port and the printing position and regulates floating-up of the plate when discharging by coming in contact with the plate from a surface side only on a neighborhood region of the side face so as not to come in contact with an observation region at a center in the width direction of the plate on a surface of the plate being conveyed by the conveying unit, 
 wherein the suppressing guide unit includes one pair of plate members disposed on the both side-faces of the plate. 
 
     
     
       8. The printer according to  claim 7 , wherein the paired rollers are disposed between the suppressing guide unit and the discharge port. 
     
     
       9. The printer according to  claim 7 , wherein the conveying unit includes three sets of the paired rollers and the three sets of the paired rollers are rotated by a driving force of the one drive motor.